1. Technical Field
This invention relates to carriers for babies or dolls, and more particularly to an improved device for carrying a baby on the hip of an adult, or a doll on the hip of a child.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The field of baby carriers is a fertile one. Carriers are available which variously position the baby on the adult's front, back or hip. While front- and back-type carriers have achieved widespread acceptance, they suffer from several inherent disadvantages. Front-type baby carriers which face the baby toward the adult's chest prevent the baby from viewing its immediate surroundings. Front-type carriers which face the baby upwards similarly restrict the baby's field of view. Furthermore, front-type baby carriers can create severe, unnatural stresses in the adult's back and spine, especially when babies weighing more than ten or fifteen pounds are carried. Back-type carriers, which typically hold the baby level with the adult's shoulders, ameliorate these principal disadvantages of front-type carriers, reducing the stress in the adult's back and allowing the baby a wide field of view. However, back-type carriers effectively prevent the adult from observing the baby's behavior and directing its attention toward its surroundings. Thus an older baby, just beginning to take an active interest in its surroundings, is isolated from the adult who is its teacher and guide as well as its means of transportation.
Simple hip slings for carrying babies have been known for centuries. Generically, hip sling baby carriers consist of a looped sling having a seat which is placed beneath the baby's or doll's bottom, and a strap which is laid over the respective adult's or child's shoulder and diagonally downward across the torso like a bandolier. Simple hip sling carriers, constructed by knotting together two opposite ends of a single piece of fabric, are widely used in less-developed countries. One common improvement made to such carriers is the addition of crude leg holes in the seat portion, allowing the baby's legs to extend through the bottom of the seat, straddling the adult's hip. Unfortunately, these holes severely weaken the carrier, especially when relatively low quality fabric is used. Simple hip sling carriers also suffer from a radically unequal distribution of stresses in the fabric, caused by the simple folding method used to construct the carrier. Thus, simple hip sling baby carriers suffer from a serious danger of the fabric tearing while the carrier is in use, dropping the baby to the ground. A further disadvantage of simple hip slings is their lack of firm support for the baby's back. A simple hip sling carrier supports the baby's weight, but generally extends upwards only as far as the small of the baby's back, requiring the adult to support the baby's upper back by means of the adult's hand or arm.
Several improvements have been attempted on the basic hip sling design for a baby carrier. Many such "improved" carriers employ complicated arrangements of straps, buckles, pads, etc., increasing the difficulty of an adult donning or doffing the carrier without assistance, and necessarily adding to the carrier's cost. Examples of such complicated sling carriers are found in Schroeder U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,166,558, for Infant Carrier, Cable et al 4,389,005, for Infant Carrier, Storm 4,492,326, for Sling-type Infant Carrier, and Mothercare Ltd. U.K. Pat. No. 1,560,260, for Improvements In or Relating to Slings for Carrying Babies.